GoKawiilAn open letter written by Tim Cook back in 2014 contrasted Apple with ad-funded services where customers are the product. That letter has been removed from the company’s website ahead of ads coming to Apple Maps for the first time.
Apple commenter John Gruber has suggested that incoming CEO John Ternus should pull the plug on this and the rest of the company’s ad business …
Gruber quotes from that 2014 letter:
A few years ago, users of Internet services began to realize that when an online service is free, you’re not the customer. You’re the product. But at Apple, we believe a great customer experience shouldn’t come at the expense of your privacy.
Cook acknowledged that the company does sell ads to app developers, but said this was done under very strict privacy protections. Gruber says he has no doubt that this remains true today, but questions the optics of what has become an increasingly grubby business.
Here in 2026, search results in the App Store not only show paid ads — frequently for casinos — but the search results are visually dominated by paid ads.
We’ve all had the experience of searching for an app by name and seeing paid ads ahead of the actual app we were looking for, and those ads are often for very low-quality apps. This is a terrible user interface experience as well as a poor look for Apple.
Gruber argues that the optics matter more than the privacy protections.
Apple can prove to itself, and to technically sophisticated outsiders who are willing to listen, that it can serve ads — even in Maps — in privacy-protecting ways. But the only way they can prove to most people that they’re not betraying the privacy of their location data or app usage is not to sell such ads in the first place. Seeing is believing, and when people see ads in their maps app, they believe they’re being tracked. John Ternus should return Apple’s privacy policy to its 2014 clarity. The trust Apple would earn from such a move would far out-value whatever revenue these ads pad to their already hefty and ever-increasing quarterly Services numbers.
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